Looks like we now know what Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino was teasing the other day! Warner Bros. Japan and Level-5 are teaming up for a Ni No Kuni animated film! The news came from a special press briefing held just a few hours ago. Here are all the tidbits we know about the project so far.

- set to debut in Japan this Summer
- Yoshiyuki Momose (The Legend of the Galactic Heroes character designer) will direct
- Hayao Miyazaki's longtime collaborator Joe Hisaishi will compose
- Level 5 CEO Akihiro Hino is the executive producer and scriptwriter, and he is also credited with the original work
- OLM (Pokémon, Inazuma Eleven franchises) is animating
- Warner Bros. Japan is the distributor
- Actor Kento Yamazaki (live-action Death Note's L, live-action Orange's Kakeru Naruse) is the protagonist, Yū
- Yū is a high school student, and his best friend is Haru and his childhood friend is Kotona
- through a certain incident, they travel back and forth between reality and Ni no Kuni
- when Kotona's life is put in danger, the three must make "the ultimate choice"
- this "global" project has been in the works for 10 years

As you might remember, the Ni No Kuni franchise, which only has two installments, kicked off in Japan with a DS/PS3 installment. While that DS version never saw localization, there was a massive wave of coverage for the title worldwide. It seems the film will embrace some ideas from both Ni No Kuni games, but should be welcoming to those who are going in fresh.